


How Did We Fall So Far?

by ZoeWithNoY



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-ish, Gen, Madison Deserved More, Madison is Very Sad, Mason is Clueless, Maybe this is five years too late, McCarthy Twins, No Incest, Sibling Bonding, but oh well, this was sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24393970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeWithNoY/pseuds/ZoeWithNoY
Summary: A rewrite of Madison and Mason's conversation after he performs "I Want to Break Free" in 6x09 "Child Star" because there's no way that Madison should've apologized first and then just been like "I'm crazy and you're totally right Mason". Nope.
Relationships: Madison McCarthy & Mason McCarthy
Kudos: 13





	How Did We Fall So Far?

**Author's Note:**

> During quarantine, I've consumed a lot of Laura Dreyfuss content, including season six of Glee (I quit watching in high school half-way through season three, and only watched season six because of her). It had potential and I wish it had been longer and without the creepy Sue/Klaine story. But mostly Madison had so much potential and it was wasted. She deserved more than being a side character in Mason's plot line, who was really just a side character in Rachel's redemption plot line. 
> 
> Anyways...I feel like Madison gets a lot hate and I am absolutely not here for it, fight me. And just in general, there should be wayyyyyy more Madison and Mason content (in any form) than there is. I don't understand. They were precious. 
> 
> Well I hope people like this, I wrote it quickly cause FEELINGS.

Madison was sitting in the dressing room of the auditorium at McKinley High, trying her best to keep from crying, she had to perform in a little bit, and she did not want red eyes or to redo her make-up. She had come back here to be alone after Mason, her Mason, sang about wanting to break away from her, how he didn’t want her anymore. And it hurt. A lot. 

It had always been the two of them, for as long as she could remember, and it worked, they had a system. They took care of each other. Sure, their close-ness got them nick-named “Creepy Incest Twins” by Kitty Wilde, but it wasn’t true, they really were just super close. He was her best friend. Her confidante. The person she went to with everything. And Mason didn’t want that anymore. 

It’s not like she had him in her claws or something, gripping on so tight that he couldn’t get away. He just never told her about wanting anything to change. She would honestly be okay with him having a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whatever because she knew it couldn’t just be the two of them forever, but she thought that Mason would’ve come to her and they could’ve talked about it. She honestly didn’t even know he had a thing for Jane. He never told her. She had told him when she had a crush on this girl in her history class freshmen year. They’d schemed together to help Madison get paired with her for a partner project. It didn’t work out, but that wasn’t the point. And she would’ve told him if anyone, boys or girls, piqued her interest at McKinley, but they hadn’t. 

How was she supposed to know anything if he didn’t tell her? How was that in any way fair? 

And Madison knew she always came off to other people as calculated and controlling, where Mason got much better adjectives like sweet and charismatic, that people liked Mason more than her. And these last couple days hadn’t helped with that either. She had lost her cool in the cafeteria and she knows she shouldn’t have yelled at him, that it would just feed into rumors about her, about them, and make everything so much worse for her, and it did. Someone was almost always rude to her in class, in the hallway, in the girls' locker room before Cheerios practice, wherever she went. 

From the outside, Maddie knew that it looked like she was popular and thriving, she was a cheerleader, she was pretty, and was super talented. But that wasn’t the case at all. In reality, she felt isolated and desperate to connect. Kitty made every other Cheerio think that she was into her brother, giving her immediate social pariah status with them. Jane, the only other girl in Glee besides Kitty, thought she was Mason’s crazy sister and never approached her. And none of the boys from Glee talked to her outside of assignments, ever. And Madison was positive that none of the alumni even knew her name. Without Mason, Madison was all alone. 

She just recently thought she was making strides and having a normal conversation with Roderick, and she honestly thought it was going well, until he told her he’d only come over to tell her that Mason had asked him and Spencer to take her off his hands so he could ask Jane out. He didn’t think it was very nice and thought she should know. He walked away after that, leaving Madison alone once more, feeling not only betrayed by Mason, but also sad that neither Roderick nor Spencer wanted to spend time with her either, regardless of the reason. 

If the group number didn’t “need” her, Madison would be home already. Taken her and Mason’s shared car and left him to find his own way home. She figured it was better to be alone at home in your room, then alone within a room full of people who didn’t want anything to do with you.

She really did think that they probably wouldn’t even notice if she weren’t on stage, it’s not like they appreciated her talents anyways. In fact, many other Glee club members saw her walk off from behind the wings, clearly distraught, and no one had even come to check up on her, not even Mason, which stung even more. She honestly wasn’t even sure what was happening right now, the group could’ve been performing, and nobody thought to tell her for all she knew. 

Madison dabs at the tears forming in her eyes, blinking in attempt to keep the rest at bay, sipping water every time she felt like her throat was closing in, when she hears a faint knock on the door, and looks over to find Mason standing there awkwardly, like she might bite him or something if he came too close. It makes the tears she’d been holding back finally fall, two symmetric streams down her cheeks. 

“Hey Maddie,” Mason calls to her, timidly taking a few steps closer to her, which honestly annoys her, he didn’t need to act like she was some ticking time bomb, ready to explode at him any moment. She didn’t need to give him any more stories to tell everyone else about how crazy she was. 

“Um, can I sit with you? They’re doing some party stuff, so there’s some time before we have to go back on stage,” Mason says slowly, approaching the bench she was sitting on.

“Why aren’t you sitting with Jane or with everyone else?”, Madison asks, and she doesn’t mean for it come out as snarky and bitter as it does, which makes her uncomfortable and she starts to cry for real. Big, hot tears flowing down her face, smearing the make-up she’d worked really hard to get right. Miss Berry and Coach Sylvester had said everything single thing about tonight needed to be perfect and she’d taken that to heart. 

“Aw, Mads please don’t cry. I noticed you weren’t there and wanted to find you,” Mason says, sitting beside her and gently putting his arm around her, still acting like she might freak out at him at any moment. It makes her heart hurt more. 

Judging by how sincere Mason looks right now, she does think he’s being honest, but he’d performed well over 20 minutes ago and she’d been back her since then, so it had taken him a while to figure out she wasn’t with the rest of the group, so he couldn’t have wanted her around that bad. 

Urged on by her hurt and frustration with him, she can’t help but sneer at him saying, “Why not send Roderick or Spencer in then? You obviously thought that was good idea before.” 

She wanted him to know that she knew what he’d done. And could she have brought it up gently and they could’ve have talked about, yeah, but she had feelings too, and she felt it was okay to be a little angry at him. He deserved it. 

Mason looks at her with a shocked expression on his face, one that quickly turned to remorse as sees how saddened she looked, her words were biting, but underneath it all she was just hurt. Not knowing exactly what to say, he asks her softly, “How’d you find out?”

“Roderick told me, and he said that you tried to bribe him and Spencer to quote take me off your hands for the night unquote. Jesus Mas, you could’ve just actually come and talked to me about it,” Madison tells him, her voice softening at the end, sniffling as she somehow managed to get the crying under control.

“I tried talking to you Maddie,” Mason starts trying to defend himself, when Madison cuts him off, turning to face him so quickly that Mason’s arm falls from where it was perched on her shoulder, “No Mason, you ambushed me in the lunch line demanding that we switch duet partners. And from a performance standpoint you know I was right; Jane does take attention away from you. But you didn’t tell me it was because you had a crush on Jane and wanted to spend time with her. And I freaked out at you and I’m sorry, but now there’s just more fuel for the gossip about how crazy I am. And then to top it off, instead of singing with either of us, you performed alone, singing a song about how you literally wanted to get rid of me. And you know Roderick never came to me to plan a song either, so you took that away too. This is way beyond glee, but maybe if I’d actually gotten to be in any arrangements besides the last one, I wouldn’t feel so shitty and alone right now.” 

“Maddie you’re not crazy and you're not alone, I’m right here with you now,” Mason says, and it’s almost endearing how genuine he sounds as he tries to grab her hand, but Madison shakes him off and she knows right then and there that he doesn’t get the bigger picture. This was why she always had to be in control because Mason never saw beyond what was right in front of him. 

“Mas, why do you never stick up for me when people say stuff about us? About me? People talk constantly about how I’m in love with you or that I want to marry you or all that other stuff. Do you know how much it hurts me? How much it takes out of me everyday to ignore it all? Do you not notice that even when people say stuff to us together, it’s always directed at me,” Madison asks him, finally getting this off her chest after dealing with it alone for so long. She had wanted to protect Mason from all the hurt she felt, not burden him with her problems, but she no longer felt like she owed that to him. He should know what it felt like to be her, to be the punchline to jokes, to be the last one chosen, to be everyone’s last thought. 

“Um, I guess I never really did notice. I’m sorry Madison, I never thought you needed me to. You always seem so put together and in control, I just figured it never bothered you and it wasn’t worth calling people out on,” Mason replies, finally starting to realize what a bad place his sister was in, and how he definitely contributed to her feeling terribly. He never wanted to hurt her, he just wanted to spend some time with Jane. Looking back, it was a really stupid idea to ask Roderick and Spencer to take her on a date, and he supposes he never really did tell her about his crush. He figured she just knew because Maddie knew everything. He never thought how she would feel if they suddenly weren’t _them_ anymore. He guesses the problem is probably that he never thinks. 

“Well it is Mason. And I’m not like you. Nobody wants to be around me if they don’t have to, you’re my only friend. So, tell me how was I supposed to feel about you all of a sudden ditching me without even telling me? You didn’t even try to talk to me one on one about how you were feeling, I would have understood, I could have even helped,” Madison says looking away from him and at the hem of her dress. One sequin was coming off, and she was resisting to urge to rip it off, settling on fiddling with it instead. She didn’t want to look in the mirror either, to see what a mess she’d become.

“Of course people want to be around you Mads,” Mason starts, pausing when he sees the incredulous look Madison threw him before going back to her dress. He puts his hand over hers, ceasing her fiddling, and tries to intertwine their hands together, and surprisingly Madison lets him. He squeezes her hand gently and tries again, “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. I made bad decisions and I shouldn’t have sung that song about you. It wasn’t fair to you and it honestly wasn’t even true. You don’t have me in some sort of cage and I never want to break free from my best friend, my twinkie.”

The use of their old nickname causes Madison to look up at him, and she sees he’s smiling, trying to encourage her to, but all she can manage is a small squeeze of his hand. One apology wasn’t going to fix they way she felt, but it was a start. 

Mason senses that she’s still upset, so he drops her hand and moves her so that she’s facing him directly and he grabs the package of make-up wipes from the vanity. As gently as he can, he wipes away the smeared and smudged make-up from Madison’s face, and manages to salvage her eyeshadow. Without saying anything he finds her make-up bag next to Kitty and Jane’s and sets in on redoing it for her (he’d been a competitive cheerleader for 10 years; he knew how to do hair and make-up). 

Madison figures this was his way of apologizing more, metaphorically fixing what he’d broken, and she appreciates it, she really does. Did it fix everything between them? No. Would they have to have a much longer talk later? Yes, most definitely. Did she feel seen by her best friend? A little. Would she be okay for now? Probably. 

When Mason finishes, he pulls her into a hug, and she hugs him back. As she starts to let go, Mason pulls her back, whispering in her ear, “I promise I’ll do better Maddie. Please don’t feel like you’re alone.”

And Madison believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all liked it! Please let me know!


End file.
